Many on the left in Britain are making a set of catastrophic strategic mistakes on Ukraine. Others are not making mistakes so much as having joined the enemy camp: NATO. How do we deal with this?

I believe part of what is going on here is related to next week’s European elections. To explain what I mean, here is a comment I left on Richard Brenner’s Facebook account:

You gotta be innit to win it? What does that mean? That is what Owen Jones says about Ed Miliband’s fan club. Having said that, I would appeal to Richard [Richard Brenner, TD] and co-thinkers to take a sophisticated approach to those who are ‘in it to win it’. They are not all as bad as each other. Forgive them, Richard, for they know not what they do. The SR have blown it. If they have decent members left they don’t seem to be putting up any resistance. I am suspicious of RS21. But they will have decent people who are being mislead by ISN entryists. John McDonnell and his co-thinkers haven’t thought things through. But there are elections at the moment and taking a hard position on this will be used to undermine Labour’s vote and they don’t seem to be able to stand up to that. Pity really. I have not been following the SWP on this. To say I am disappointed in the SWP would be an understatement. But the idea they are all monolithic on this is almost certainly wrong, and they have to be argued with. From about the mid-1980s the SWP divided at the top on anti-authoritarian movements supported by NATO. My guess is they are split on this for a couple of reasons. Firstly their ‘Neither Washington or Moscow’ stance probably leads them to jump into bed with anyone who poses as above that, and they are being tricked. Need to patiently explain that to the best of them. Don’t respond to sectarian provocations with sectarianism of your own: that only helps those who want to impose a false line on most of their comrades. The second problem, I suspect, is the EU elections. The SWP is so determined to stop UKIP they are keen to distance themselves from anythingthat, however indirectly, helps UKIP. And that means they are refusing to make use of RT to get the facts across. This offers the SWP nothing but press releases from NATO via the BBC, SKY News, Channel4 News, ITV and C5… That has lead them to help NATO’s parties in the election, including David Cameron’s and Nick Clegg’s. And Ed Miliband is just as bad. The SWP has not thought this thing through. But it is necessary to argue with them and with others on the left. Give them the benefit of the doubt where there is any. Patiently explain to those who have been told to stop watching RT and watch the five NATO television networks instead.

One Response to Why are socialists in Britain dancing to NATO’s tune?

I have posted that last comment on my blog with a few attempts to explain the context. All I will say here is that it is essential for the real left to break up these NATO ‘socialists’ the way Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht broke up the Keiser ‘socialists’ in WWI. Lenin and Luxemburg had a very productive debate on tactics on how to deal with the renegades. That is the kind of debate we need. We can disagree on polemics, but some questions are not up for negotiation: peddling NATO lies, associating ourselves with fraudsters who have been exposed as such only discredits us in the eyes of potential recruits. Get the facts out. Expose anyone caught trying to bury the facts. Call into question the motives of anyone who has been caught burying the truth, especially when this helps NATO… But don’t dismiss naive people prematurely. Sectarianism only plays into the hands of NATO. Give traitors enough rope to hang themselves. This is a question of tactics, polemics, playing devils advocate to tease out what individuals really think. Don’t get dragged by trolls on the internet into counterproductive flame wars. Don’t descend into shouting matches with those who want to use BBC and SKY secret cameras to ‘monster’ us while they can always pay another fake left to replace whichever one of them has to withdraw having been caught provoking us. Make sure everyone watches RT. Watch critically. Make use of alternative sources. But use them to get the facts across. And also discuss why some of these socialists are making such catastrophic mistakes. Trying to help Tories, Lib Dems and Ed Miliband win the EU election is part of the explanation for why some of them have landed themselves in this mess as apologists for NATO.